— — —
I wait all day for a call, and when none comes, I call Kevin.
“So no more word?”
“They are gonna play hardball for a while. We have to let them spin their wheels a bit. Meanwhile, I caught up with a buddy of mine who specializes in accident law. He thinks there are lots of holes in their case.”
“Like what?”
“Like how much of the fault lies with Jess. If Mitchell was in the roadway, we could press that he carries some of the fault.”
“Really?”
“Yes, and no. That will only work if we can cast enough doubt on whether Jess was texting. Sheila is our problem there. She’s insisting that she was. She has even gone so far as to say she told Jessica not to look at her phone. It might come down to whether or not Jess was aware of the risk created by her conduct.”
“Jess knows she shouldn’t text and drive. She has been clear about that.”
“Right. But if she unknowingly did or failed to do something that caused the accident, then it would be criminally negligent homicide.”
“And that’s better?”
“Yes! Same fines, but shorter sentence because it’s a lesser charge.”
“This sounds like verbal accounting.”
“Pretty much.”
“So you want to prove that Jess wasn’t texting, but that she was distracted in some other way.”
“Maybe not prove, but at least cast significant doubt.”
— — —
When I call Jess on Tuesday, she says there is nothing to do at Jake’s, but she won’t go back to school. Jake takes her side every time. “Leave her be,” he tells me. “Let a little time pass.” When I ask him what Jess is doing out there, he says, “She’s vegging.” Vegging is something Jake can understand. He has made it his life’s work.
When I hang up, I call the school counselor. It has been two weeks since Jess has been in school and I don’t know what else to do. I have never met the school counselor, but I have seen her at back-to-school night. She always seemed nice.
“How is Jessica doing?” she asks.
“About what you’d expect.”
“She’s in a difficult position. I would like to help. Has she talked to anyone? A psychologist?”
Jess should see a private psychologist, her doctor suggested as much when he removed her stitches, but I can’t afford that. Our health insurance is bare bones and I need every penny I have to pay Kevin, even though so far he has refused everything I have offered.
“No. It’s not really something we can afford, and honestly, I’m not sure she’d talk to anyone.”
“I can give it a try.”
“I’d appreciate that.”
“When is she coming back to school?”
“Thursday,” I tell her, but I have no idea how I will make that happen.
“Tell her to come to my office instead of homeroom.”
“Will she have to go to classes?”
“Not yet. Let me just see how she’s doing. Is she working on the assignments she’s missing?”
“Yes,” I lie. I know she hasn’t touched anything except her English work.
I call Jake at the shop.
“She has to go back to school on Thursday. I will pick her up tomorrow morning at eight. I’ll go to work a little late.”
“Have you told her?”
“No. That’s why I’m calling you. You need to convince her. Has she done any of her homework?”
“I don’t know.”
“Of course you don’t.”
“I think math is the least of her worries right now.”
I bite my tongue and don’t say the things I’m thinking, like maybe if she started doing her school work she would spend less time watching TV and feeling sorry for herself. I need to keep the peace with Jake for Jessica’s sake.
“Just talk to her. I’ll be there at eight.”
“Aye, aye, captain.”
— — —
That night I meet Kevin for dinner ostensibly to talk about strategy and give him more of Jess’ things—report cards, academic awards, and a copy of her clean driving record I got from the DMV. But instead of talking about Jess, I unload about Jake.
“It’s just so frustrating! Why can’t he act like a parent? Why does he always need to be the pal?”
“Not that it isn’t pretty obvious, but how amicable was your split with Jake?”
“Basically, Jake just jumped ship. He didn’t fight me on anything, we even used the same lawyer.”
“So you two can play nicely sometimes.”
I roll my eyes. “What about you? What happened with Jill?”
I learn that while Kevin and his wife Jill, have been separated for over ten years, he is not yet legally divorced. He says it’s because he “hasn’t gotten around to it yet,” and I ask if that is like me ‘not getting around to picking up my dry cleaning?’ I have at least two orders still waiting, but I am hoarding every penny these days.
He laughs when I say this. “But it is like that for me,” he protests. “I’ll do it. I just haven’t had time. I have all the paperwork. I just need to file it. Jill has her own life. She has plenty of money. She doesn’t want anything. It’s just a matter of doing it.”
“Then do it,” I tell him, but the more I get to know him, the more I wonder if he is dragging his feet for a reason. The man has a suitcase full of regrets he carries around.
“I will,” he says and looks at me a moment too long. I look away. I can’t go there yet.
“Maybe you haven’t done it because you really don’t want to.”
He frowns at this. “Are you asking if I still have feelings for Jill?”
“That might explain why you’re procrastinating.”
“Do you still have feelings for Jake?” he asks.
We are dining at a schmoozy club Kevin loves. The walls are floor to ceiling bookshelves filled with vintage books. There is a lamp with a cut-glass lampshade on each table. The rest of the room fades away into darkness, creating the illusion of privacy. I imagine a lot of legal deals get made here.
Kevin sips his wine and waits for my answer. One thing I have grown to appreciate about Kevin is he listens well. He leans in and asks questions and genuinely focuses on what I am saying. I’m not sure I have ever spent time with a man like this. Jake was always fun, but in my mind, Jake is still the same guy who played football and wrecked his pickup truck and bought his mother plastic flowers on Mother’s Day. Listening was never his specialty.
“I care about Jake because he is Jess’ father, but I think what it comes down to is I’ve grown up and Jake never has. In some ways, I think he is happier than I am.”
Kevin leans back against the leather booth. “Current situation aside, you aren’t happy?” he asks.
I wave away his question. “I’m just saying Jake always seems pretty happy. He doesn’t stress about anything. He doesn’t worry about bills or what other people think or what might happen tomorrow.”
“That’s easy to do when you aren’t responsible for anyone but yourself.”
“Exactly,” I say and drain my wine. “But back to my original question. Do you have feelings for Jill?”
“No,” he says and refills my wine glass from the bottle on the table. “I do not. I rarely think of her unless I cross paths with her because of work. She is also a lawyer. We’ve been physically divorced for so many years, getting an actual divorce is almost an afterthought.”
“Hmmm,” I say. But I
don’t ask him the question I really want to ask—why is he divorced? From where I sit, he is every woman’s dream guy. He is handsome, smart, charming, considerate, and successful. What’s not to like?
18
JESS
After Mom drops me at our house, I take a shower. The shower at dads sucks and I can never get all the soap out of my hair, plus it’s kind of like camping out there. I come home feeling like I’m wearing a layer of dirt. Standing in the shower, I contemplate my options.
Going by the comments on social media, it’s clear that everyone hates me. Lying around with nothing to do has given me plenty of time to think and I have come to the conclusion that there is no good option. Door number one, I tell the police I’m guilty and they send me to jail, which is scary as shit. Door number two, I go to school, which is also scary as shit. And glorious Door number three, I off myself—the scariest of all which explains why I haven’t done it and why, for now, it’s not really an option. Sometimes when I’m running, I dare myself to step out into the roadway as a car approaches. Once, I even put a foot into the lane, which made the driver swerve and honk. The only thing that keeps me from doing it is that I figure I’ll just be trading places with some other poor soul who won’t remember what happened but will feel eternally guilty for killing someone, adding another name to the list of people whose lives I’ve ruined.
I just want to remember what happened. Sometimes I think I remember something, some little piece of it—a noise, a smell, a moment, but then I end up questioning whether I’m making it up. Or maybe I’m just afraid to remember. Because maybe I did what they’re saying. Maybe I looked at the text from Casey and because of that, I hit Coach Mitchell. Maybe I am that person. And if I am, how come I don’t know it?
I’m so tired of thinking about all of it; I wish I could just shut my mind off. Killing myself would effectively do that. And yet I don’t. I stare at passing cars and I tell myself to move, but I don’t. So, really, why am I so set against door number two? Going to school can’t be worse than living with myself alone all day.
I spend the day watching TV, which even though we have cable isn’t a lot better than the crap at Dad’s. The sound of the school bus lumbering up the street reminds me that I haven’t touched my makeup work except for English. I have already finished The Catcher in the Rye. It seems like an appropriate read. I can relate. I’ve even wondered if I should pull a Holden and just disappear. Only where would I go and how would I get there?
Movement out the window catches my eye. Dylan, the kid next door, is climbing up a ladder to his pathetic tree fort. Sheila says he built it just so he can watch us sunbathe, but Sheila also says he’s gay, so one kind of cancels out the other and I’m thinking maybe she’s wrong on both counts. The last year or so, Mom has paid Dylan to cut the grass or rake the leaves in our yard. Sometimes I refer to him as Freddie because, besides an odd fashion sense, he likes to sing seventies music while he works and has a particular affinity for Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody.
I pull the slider door and walk outside. Dylan waves at me. I give him a half-hearted wave. Not sure if I should encourage him, but I’m tired of my own company. He’s in eighth grade. I’ve hardly ever talked to him, even though back before I got my license we rode the same bus every day. He climbs down from the tree fort and walks up to the rusty chain-link fence that weaves between our houses. You can’t lean on it because it sways.
Dylan is wearing skin-tight pants and a big purple scarf wrapped around his orange jacket. It’s a look that makes people in Jefferson assume you’re unstable, or at the very least, a Democrat. He smiles like I’m just the person he was hoping to see.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hey,” he says.
I wave him in, and he pushes open the gate.
“Are you ever going back to school?”
I shrug.
“Will you ride the bus again?”
I shrug again. I suppose so since my car is toast.
“So, what have I missed?” I ask and sit down on the edge of the concrete slab we call the patio as if it’s a place we’d hold tea parties and not just where we put boxes before they go to the curb for recycling.
“You know, the usual. Assholes in the back of the bus were caught smoking and before the bus driver got to the back to catch them, one of the geniuses opened the emergency door and dropped the butts out. So they got kicked off the bus for opening the door instead of for smoking.”
“Huh, has anyone said anything about me?”
Now he averts his eyes. I know the next thing out of his mouth will be a lie.
Only it isn’t. He sits down a few feet away from me on the patio edge.
“Pretty much everybody.”
“What do you think?”
“It sucks.”
I’m glad Dylan doesn’t say, “It was an accident.”
“Yeah,” I say. There’s a lump in my throat, and the tears are coming. Luckily I’m saved by his mom who comes out to call him for dinner. They have this cheesy bell she rings, kind of like in the Little House on the Prairie books when Ma would call Laura and Mary. I loved those books when I was a kid.
“Gotta go,” he says heading for the gate. “See ya at school tomorrow!”
I give him a half-hearted smile. “Sure.”
19
LIZ
At work, I go through the motions, but my heart is elsewhere. All I can think about is Jess walking into that school tomorrow and feeling the same accusatory air that envelopes me everywhere I go in town – the grocery store, the gas station, even here at work sometimes I feel people staring.
Every day Jess sinks further into herself. I have tried to talk to her, but her answers are flippant, or else she ignores me. I wish she would tell me what she is feeling–anger, sadness, something.
I listen to Mrs. Buchanan complain about her new roommate, Mrs. Switzer, and I want to care about the difference between opening the curtains a crack and opening them a hand’s width.
“It may be because her hand is so fat. That is probably it,” she says. “When she asked if she could open the curtains a crack, I said no more than a hand’s width. But every day, she flings those curtains open first thing. And then she leaves and goes to breakfast.”
“You could ask her to close them.”
“But I’m not awake when she leaves.”
“But I thought the sunlight woke you up.”
“It does.”
I sigh. She wrinkles her brow.
“I’ll speak with her,” I say.
“Thank you, dear. I appreciate that. And I hope the police don’t lock up your daughter for killing that man,” she says as she walks out.
Later, I get a call from Aaron.
“So, is your daughter going to jail?” he asks.
“Not even a hello, how are you?” I joke, although I don’t feel the least bit jokey.
“Liz, to be frank, I had a call from one of the residents.”
“From who? Mr. Parker? He’s just mad because I told his daughter he’s been making crude comments to the nurses.”
“It doesn’t matter who, I just want to be sure you’re still up to doing your job. You are under a lot of stress.”
I say nothing. My pulse is racing. I cannot lose this job.
“Maybe you should take some personal time.”
“And what is that? Unpaid vacation?”
“Pretty much.”
“Is that a direction or a request?”
“It’s just a suggestion. Maybe you need to focus on your family.”
The afternoon does not get much
better from there. Avery is out because she had to take Kimba to the doctor. Just a regular checkup, she assures me when I text her. Without her, I feel unprotected, unsure who to trust. More and more, I feel that way everywhere I go—the grocery store, pharmacy, even the gas station. It seems like everyone is staring, talking about my daughter, wondering what kind of mother I am. I want to shout at them, “Jess is a good kid! It was an accident! You people aren’t perfect either!” Instead, I keep my head down and try not to make eye contact.
Jess is a good kid.
— — —
Kate has left several messages about my father. I have no answers for her, but I call his nursing home, not to talk to him, but to speak with his caretakers. I talk to the nurse manager. She tells me his kidneys are holding steady, but that he needs dialysis more often now. He has good days and bad days mentally.
“Has he asked for me?”
“No, but you know your dad. He won’t ask for help even if he isn’t sure what day it is.”
Arlan Campbell would never ask for help. He has never needed it, not until now as his body betrays him. He only agreed to move into the nursing home because he didn’t want to ask Kate or me for help. After we made the decision, he acted as if it was his idea. “I’m moving into some fancy apartment so I don’t have to fuss after a lawn anymore. They even have a meal service.” It wasn’t until Kate ran into his doctor on one of her visits that we found out about his failing kidneys. Being Arlan, he never complained about the pain he had been having, and my mother was not there to speak for him.
When I hang up, I call Kate back.
“He’s our father,” she says. “Who knows how much time he has.”
“The nurses told me he’s doing okay. The dialysis is still working. They aren’t sure if his disorientation is from the kidney failure or maybe early dementia. Either way, it is not an emergency. We have time. Renal failure doesn’t happen quickly. He isn’t that old.”
“He’s seventy-two.”
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